On Becoming a Novelist

If you want to start writing fiction, or improve what you're already writing, then buy this book. There's really nothing more to say. Gardner's slim volume is worth twenty tomes on archetypes and story structures and channeling your inner child. Those things are important, but for the most part they can take care of themselves. The strength of Gardner's approach is that he gets straight down to the serious business of putting words on the page and figuring out if you're the kind of person who's good at it. Drawing examples from his own writing and experience as a teacher, he describes what he sees as the "writer's nature" (verbal facility, accuracy of vision, a particular kind of intelligence, and a daemonic compulsiveness), gives some blunt observations on the usefulness (or otherwise) of creative writing workshops, some helpful pointers on editors and publishing, and a nice final chapter on creative faith. My only reservation is that he comes down quite heavily on the side of realism. "Good writers may 'tell' almost anything in fiction except the characters' feelings," he maintains (p.33). Certainly, a lot of bad writing is bad because it "tells" rather than "shows", but I think one of the great beauties and values of prose fiction is precisely that it can take us inside the minds characters and make legible what they are REFUSING to show. Ironically, this often provides a much greater fidelity to 'real life' than the strikingly un-lifelike practice of levering arcane metaphors into place to represent, externally, a character's mental or emotional experience. If prose fiction isn't allowed to recount a character's inner life, then what value does it have over film and television - two forms which Gardner seems to decry? Still, Gardner's advice is generous and convincing, yet never totalizing. You get the distinct impression that if you totally disagreed with everything he said, and yet still wrote good fiction, he'd be nothing less than delighted for you. Now that's a good teacher.

There are lots of books out there on the mechanics of writing a novel. There are others that give you plot outlines, character sketches, or tell you how hard, hard, hard, or easy, easy, easy it is to build a career in writing. Gardner, on the other hand, simply tells you how it is- at least from his point of view, and he makes it clear throughout that his advice to young writers is only one wall of the pigpen. The most refreshing aspect of this book is that it is geared to the "serious" novelist- i.e. someone who doesn't want to write books based on formulas or what sells, but just wants to write what they want to write. Gardner doesn't lie about the slim possibilities of making a living as a novelist, but he does give solid advice on how to make money without your job interfering with your work. Though it was written more than twenty years ago, this book is still valuable today for the beginning writer- I'll keep it on my shelf for many years to come.

I can't think of a better book to put in the hands of a young writer: it inspires, teaches, comforts, and offers endless hope. I first read this book in hardback in 1983 -- still saddened by the author's death in a motorcycle accident the year before -- and I've enjoyed reading it many times since. In a beautiful and touching foreword Raymond Carver, a student of Gardner's in the '50s, writes that Gardner gave to the teaching of fiction the same energy and devotion to craft and moral concerns that he gave to his novels. Gardner's main objective in this book, as he states early on, is "to deal with, and if possible get rid of, the beginning novelist's worries." Does he do that? Well, he certainly helps the young writer answer a crucial question: Am I talented enough to write novels? Gardner explores the indicators -- sensitivity to language, an eye for significant detail, the knack of sustaining a narrative ("a vivid and continuous dream"), self-awareness, curiosity, nerve, empathy, a huge curiosity about people. (Gardner believes that lousy people will necessarily write lousy books.) Gardner also addresses some of the darker aspects of the writing life: writer's block, rejection, depression, suicide. And through it all he draws upon beliefs and practices that sustained him through the ups and downs of his controversial career, thus providing beginning novelists with a faith that can sustain them in the years to come.

If you want Gardner's opinion on plot, characterization, symbolism, tone, and the like, try his 'Art of Fiction' (which is also very good.) This book deals more with the non-literary aspects of the writing lifestyle. It answers questions like "How do I know if I have what it takes to be a novelist?" "Should I get an MFA?" "What about writer's conferences? Are they any good?" "How do I deal with editors and agents?"... and so forth.Gardner reveals many of the same prejudices as in 'Art of Fiction', but he is man enough to admit readily that they are just preferences. His target audience is Joseph Heller, not Dean Koontz or Nora Ephron. Nevertheless much of his advice can be valuable to any young writer.

More accessible than Gardner's own The Art of Fiction, more sophisticated than Bird by Bird, more nourishing than most novels, this is the best book on writing since Aspects of the Novel. And someone should really think about republishing Gardner's fiction!